>> what's your reaction to the deal? what do you think it's going to mean? >> i think it's good for us. any time a joint venture like this. we get bigger. we get stronger. it's a plus for us. down the true will really bring a lot of business to us. people are afraid things will charges but the human element here is so important. that's why it's critical. it will be here long time. >> a quick thought on where we stand in the markets right now as we continue to watch the back and forth over the fiscal cliff. >> i think you can see the markets kind of treading sideways here, but, you know, triple witch, last big witch of the year. >> a a lot of volatility to the markets so we'll be watching that. >> enjoy the holidays. >> happy holidays. >> second hour of the "closing bell" is going to begin in five seconds. maria will pick it up on the other side. and it is 4:00 on wall street. do you know where your money is? hi, everybody. welcome back to the "closing bell." i'm maria bartiromo on the floor of the new york stock exchange. stocks higher today on wall street as the close settles out. we see some money coming into this market.

investors still hoping for a deal in washington to avoid the fiscal cliff. take a look at how we're settling on wall street. as we saw money moving into equities in the last 20 minutes pushing the dow jones industrial average up to 60 points higher at the close at 13,312 on the dow jones industrial average. nasdaq also finishing in the plus column with a gain of six points, and the s&p 500 up about eight points, one-half of 1% at 1433. closing in on the fiscal cliff deadline still with no deal in sight, let's find out how you should be investing in the face of the fiscal cliff fiasco. we want to dig deeper into the nyc/i.c.e. deal as well announced today, that it means for you and the global exchanges. gentlemen, welcome. thanks soechg for joining us. >> thanks. >> thanks for having me. >> let me kick this off with you in terms of the fiscal cliff. give me your strategy, deal or no deal? >> i think there will be a deal. this plan "b" that wehner has

actually -- waiting to see if it actually makes it to the congress for a vote is actually a big deal because if he gets it through congress he gains a little bit more leverage to have a bigger discussion with president obama maybe over the weekend to go back to plan "a" so i don't think it's getting a lot of attention, but it is a very big deal that he gets it first through congress and, second, if he gets it through congress, he gains a little bit more leverage to have a bigger discussion. >> ron insana, isn't it interesting that this market is expecting a deal so much? >> yeah. >> even when we had both sides digging in. at the end of the day, money moves into equities as if investors are saying there's no way these guys won't do a deal by december 31? >> maria, so much different than what we saw last year in 2011 when the debt ceiling debacle took place. the market appears to be looking through this and seeing through all the posturing and making the bet that the deal, as you say, will get done. i like to go with the cumulative which is do. markets, the message of the markets, however you want to characterize it and think that somebody knows something a little bit better than i do on this one and, hence, they are

discounting a positive rather than a negative outcome. >> yeah, for sure. bill stone, how are you allocating money in the face of all of this? >> i think you have to think about how it plays out in the end which we believe you get a deal. don't run away from in terms of risk, have your risk on, allocation to equity and allocation to dividend stocks to take the volatility out. frankly, as you're talking about it, haven't really needed that, but then you have allocation to spread product in terms of the fixed income space so i think you do sit there and have your eyes on the longer term. >> longer term being what? what kind of groups do you want to own if you're looking at the longer term? >> you know, i think it is -- you know, one thing can you talk about now is that it does look like, you know, you can't say it's the worst case scenario, but in terms of what looks like where a deal ends up on worst case for dividends and capital gains is perhaps that 20% now, so, you know, maybe you can stop worrying quite so much about those moving all the way to

ordinary income, even for the top income earners. >> just want to point out that shares of research in motion are in fact halted right now as we're waiting for the quarterly numbers to come out. we're expecting a loss from rimm of 35 cents a sharing, don't want to say earnings obviously, but a 35-cent share loss, revenue of $2.66 billion. if you had to just look at earnings, andreas, tell me about the corporate landscape going into 2013? a lot of people feel that this is the best part of the recovery in any way you look corporate? >> i think if you look at corporate earnings, we're past the double-digit earnings gains we saw in the last couple of years. we do believe margin expansion story is not totally over, and really what's actually going to drive earnings going forward is going to be revenue. we'll have to rely on nominal gdp going a little bit higher than 4% to get us a little bit up, 5%, 6%, 2% earnings growth going forward. doesn't sound like a lot. multiple expansion could carry us a little bit higher on

returns. >> ron, what do you think? ahead on s&p earlier that said revenue growth has been really disappointing as people wait for the fiscal cliff deadline. >> on the other side no monetary cliff. we're going up the side of the mountain in almost every major country in the world, whether it's japan, china, europe is now pressing on the accelerator, brazil, even india, the united states. i think when you look at the monetary stimulus that's taking place around the world, the uncertainty over the cliff will go away. i think we'll grow better than 4% nominal and might grow 3% to 4% real in the united states and multiple expansion would clearly take place under that scenario, so i think it's hard to get to bearish, particularly when the stock market is not giving us any signs of meaningful deterioration, you know, whether you look at the technical indicators or fundamental indicators. >> a great point. bill stone, you know, rimm stock has done so well just in the last several weeks. we're still expecting a loss for the quarter on 2.66 billion in

revenue, but do you own this stock? would you buy rimm? would you look to buy technology going into 2013? >> we don't own the stock. i will say i am a product user. i love rimm because i love that keyboard. i can't get rid of it. >> right. >> i don't really have a good opinion on the stock. looking forward to the new phone coming out though. >> keyboard is gone though? >> oh, well that's a problem for me. >>ia. a lot of people feel that way, you're right. >> ron, what about the nyc deal today? sort of leaves you scratching your head wondering what cme group is going to do now. >> maria, i have to say i think market structures becomes a very important issue in this deal. when you think about dick grasso, and you know i'm a partisan, toys taken hank pauls-in, john that inand duncan neared hour to dismantle something that was built over the last 220 and i worry about market structure in so far as these exchanges, the way they are constructed today with much, much less human intervention, may ultimately do a disservice

to the investor as we've seen dark pools and the like, algorithmic traders. as we go down the road, greater market perspective to something like a flash crash and the less fair treatment individual investors get this this process, and this is maybe an exclamation point we've worried about for a number of years. >> that's a great point. thanks so much for your time. see you soon. stocks higher today as lawmakers are continuing to work on a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff. bob pisani here with the winners and losers on wall street today. over to you, bob. >> take a look at dow, folks, and we did advance despite of an impasse on the fiscal life. ended not far from the highs of the day. in fact, we've been moving up for a while. take a look at the last month. despite the concerns here that we may not get a deal, the market is still saying the outlines of a deal is see very

much in effect. gdp revision, existing home sales, best since november 2009. a couple sectors stand out. banks were market leaders again. they have been on fire for weeks now. new highs today, bank of america and citigroup. transports are near a 52-week high. railroads strong, kansas city southern and delta on fire. that stock is up 20% in the last few weeks and jetblue also doing well on top of that. deal of the week, of course, you know the new york stock exchange. maybe it's the deal of the month. 33.12 and ended a little bit before for that the nyc/i.c.e. deal and of course what we don't know is the name of the new company. let's hope it has nyse in it. >> thanks. we want to slip in on a quick break and get those numbers out for the fourth quarter. house getting set to vote on the

proposal. daniels took his state from deficit to surplus his few year in washington. i'll ask him what washington has to do. today morse will making agawa becoming the most popular group and what one member thinks of the i.c.e. negotiation. back in a moment.

. welcome back. to hammer out a debt deal, they may want to take a page from indiana's playbook. the state has about $2 billion in cash reserves and an estimated half a billion surplus heading into the new year. outgoing governor mitch daniels knows all about balancing the budget. he served as director of the office of management and budget under president bush and joins us now from indianapolis. so good to have you on the program. >> thanks, maria. >> so from your stand point, how do you get a deal done in washington? what advice do you have for lawmakers right now on how to

get this budget deal back on the table? >> well, i'm not probably the one to ask about the immediate tactics of this so-called cliff, but my advice would be, yeah, sure. let's try to avoid a wrenching change the first of the year, but don't congratulate yourself if you do that. you've done anything fundament a. the real cliff, this is a speed bump. the real cliff, as we all know, is 16 drillion of debt and 60 odd drillion of unfunded promises, and -- and if they -- if and when they finally patch something together for the immediate future i hope no one hooeds a sigh of relief and thinks really anything important or fundamental has happened >> that's what we're waiting to see. i want you to stand by for me and we have numbers to get out on a research in motion quarter, company reporting ref neuve $2.7 billion, better than the expected revenues of $2.66

billion. a little better on revenue for the third quarter. now the loss was expected to be 35 cents a share. i'm waiting on the actual quarterly number here in terms of the loss. we don't have that yet, but the stock is trading higher on this revenue number. i've got david garry with me. it traded up going into the close today, as you can see with the 4% move. 22 cents -- adjusted loss is 22 cents a share. 22 cents a share loss is the adjusted loss, by, again, teams better than expected. this stock, of course, has been on fire the last couple of years. 2.7 billion in revenue on a less of 22 cents a share, dave. what's your expectation, how do you react? >> the loss was less than originally expected so the company has been effective in

limiting expenses and conserve cash. 2.3 billion is a key number investors are looking at because the cash reserves got drawn down and even if blackberry as asuccess when launched on january 30th in new york, we'll see a dilutive offering from the company. >> okay. in terms of this stock run-up ahead of these numbers, you think it's warranted? >> up from its low of 2.24 back on september 24th. this stock has been modestly and at the same time we've seen so many names in the esknown market, nokia and htv up off their lows and i think we got dose ent numbers coming out of apple, these begins in these stocks would be reverse very quickly. >> would you put pun to work.

>> probably and midnight and start buying puts. you think this stock goes down? >> i do. you've been a stunt of technology for so long. let's get the raw data. over to you, jor. >> reporter: one of the things i want to point out is the average selling price of blackberry hardware. it's right at 334. that's down slightly from waft quarter, down quite a bit from a year ago. a year ago it was $291. another bit of bad news is that this subscriber, the global subscriber number, is down to 79 million. it was 80 million last year, and they had touted that that had gone up. but there is also good news, and the cash position at torsten heinz in the release says they generated $950 million from cash, from operations.

also part of what rim is benefitting here is a $166 million tax benefit that might have helped them numbers in some way. neglect identify on the subscribers. 6.9 million units sold which is down from a quarter oak and the got mar begins are holing up pretty well. some positives, some negatives. not discountying that much but they will continue to try to tis count and keep their market share up. >> the 50 generated in cash. does that change your scope? >> if it doesn't including the next break. that you temper aggressiveness in terms of being short. looking business historically, companies's fortunes are down

and out over the last several years, obviously we still have more than a month here before we see the blackberry 10 launch again on january 30th here in new york, so there may be room to run on the upside. but i would say the way we've seen this company run right now, for a company expected to lose money and a company whose revenues are somewhat in question because their subscriber numbers are actually down, it does start to beg the whole question of, you know, okay, at what point in time do we step away from the long trade on this stock, being up 125% and actually think about going the other way? >> all right. we'll be watching that. i mean, this stock, three seconds ago it was at six and now it's at 14. you think it's going back to 6? >> i would simply say if there'sing in ivoktive of a cliff it's a stock with a name rimm. >> david garrity, always great to talk with you from gba research ks so much, david. back with more from indiana governor mitch dan else and conagra food stocks hitting its

highest levels of the year. can 2013 be better? talk with that company's ceo on the other side of the break in an interview you see only here. how he plans to grow conagra's consumer food business and why brand names may no longer be worth the money. later stay with me for more on the nyc/i.c.e. deal. don't miss it. back in a moment. impact wool exports from new zealand, textile production in spain, and the use of medical technology in the u.s.? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it's just one reason over 75% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses to read and consider carefully before investing.

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welcome back. more breaking news. nike earnings out. let's get to brian schactman for that. >> really interesting, beat on eps, 1.14 compared to $1. straight even on revenue. a few things inside the number. the stock is actually trading sharply to the upside. margins decrease a little bit and inventories rise, and you think it would be a recipe for some negatives and i want to point out two things in particular. north american business in terms of revenue up 17%. that is a huge number. the only negative region in the entire world for them is china. getting crushed a little bit on a peril, but i think the north american strength, when you look at the global growth where it is, it's in north america right now, and you take a look at the eps beat, that's what investors are looking at. >> thank you very much. brian schaktman, we'll watch nike. back to our interview with outgoing republican governor mitch daniels of indiana. good to have you. thanks so much for joining us. >> yes, ma'am. >> we were talking about the possibility of a deal in washington. what's your take in terms of how this plays out.

you think we get a deal, or no? >> in a lot better position to know than i am. my intuition tells me that ultimately the sequester and all the implications of that will be avoided somehow. washington has a pattern of doing that and kicking the proverbial can, but as we were saying before the break, maria, even if they do, until they show some seriousness about the welfare state programs and the completely unkeepable promises that are built into them, there's no reason to applaud, and there's really no reason for the world to -- and its investors to believe that the united states is serious about avoiding a much bigger cliff than the one we're looking at in january. >> yes, but, i mean, you know, we've got a lot of cuts to come if in fact we do see this -- this deal go over the fiscal cliff and we don't have a deal, and that includes state and local governments, money, federal money going to state and

federal governments so how does indiana fare if those cuts happen? >> well, first of all, as you made mention, we've tried to prepare -- i don't trust this economy, and we probably are like a lot of your corporate viewers who have husbanded cash as a precaution against what could be a very difficult year next year and a difficult stretch ahead. we've got $2 billion in the bank even after a very large automatic tax refund to every taxpayer, and at the federal level that would equate to half a trillion dollar of reserves, so, you know, we -- the best thing washington can do for us frankly is to get the economy growing at anything like a normal rate. as you know, this is a pathetic excuse for a recovery. the participation rate of workers is lower now than when the recession bottomed, and i don't find a precedent for that in history. 3 million people fewer working today than before it started. you know, we could manage here

in indiana at least, if they bungled their way into a sequester, et cetera, what we can't manage is another couple of years of totally anemic growth and national policy that leans against it every chance it gets. >> yeah, i know. but at this point both sides are sticking in. i mean, they are holding on to their sacred ground. what about boehner's plan "b?" would you vote for it? do you think that that would work. >> it's a -- it's better than no action, and i appreciate the position he is in. i don't think either side, but honestly, i personally believe the administration has been less responsible here. i don't really know what they are thinking. over the next four year, unless something very significant is done first to grow this economy at anything like a heretofore normal rate, anything like a kind of rate that we're supposed to have after a deep recession,

and unless the first step or two is taken, not to change the entitlements today but to begin to moderate their demands in the out years, i -- i see no reason for any jubilation, cliff or no cliff. >> all right. we will leave it there. governor, we know that you are leaving office on january 14th to become the president of purdue university. hope to see you soon. best of luck. >> love to be back. >> see you soon, governor mitch daniels of indiana. my exclusive interview with the head of conagra and bon moshe and what he thinks about the fiscal cliff and the house gearing up to vote on speaker boehner's plan "b" action. we'll go live to washington. stay with us.

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welcome back. chef boyardee, marie calendar and banquet meals, congressing a are a produces it. conagra also increased the ante on the full year target. good to have you on the program, mr. rod kin, thanks for joining

us. >> good to be here. >> you raised your guidance for next year, but many of your peers are talking about uncertainty. why are you so optimistic? >> well, we believe that we really do have some momentum in the business. both operating segments, both our consumer foods and our commercial segment are both doing well. we say we've got the right pricing architecture and got the right level of investment, particularly from a marketing and an innovation standpoint, and our productivity initiatives are working extremely well, so when we put that all together and look forward, we continue to believe that the momentum will carry through. >> so in terms of the -- the expense side of the business, we know that commodities prices have been moving up. how has that impacted your business, and do you expect that to continue and force you to pass it on to consumers? >> maria, the inflation in our cost of goods is actually the level of inflation, is much more moderate this year than it was a year ago, so, yes, we still have some modest cost of goods

inflation of 2% to 3%, but that's significantly behind where it was a year oak, and, therefore, given our pricing architecture and our margin management we've been able to manage through that. as we look forward, we -- we really look towards a relatively moderate level of inflation. it will flare up in some places driven by the drought, so we'll -- we'll see that probably in proteins as we look into our next fiscal year, but it will still, we believe, be very manageable. >> let me ask you about your acquisition of ralph corp last month. that, of course, more than quadrupling conagra's private label sales to $4.5 billion and total sales obviously of $18 billion. tell me about the integration. where are you? when would you expect sort of the settlement of the two companies? >> we believe that the close will take place sometime in the first quarter of calendar 2013,

so several months away. we're working as best we can with the company very closely. obviously, there's so much you can do before you close. we're still two independent public companies, but we believe very strongly that the integration will go very well, in the first place, because we have already, as you mentioned, $1 billion private label business, so we've been managing the branded business and the private label business side by side for a number of years now. we've also got very disciplined processes in place for the integration, and we've really done six transactions in the last year, obviously smaller scale, but we've got a lot of experience and a lot of folks that -- that really have some tools and a very discipline set of processes that we believe will allow taint gracious while big and complex to be fight successful. >> absolutely, and you've been a successful acquirer and much of the growth of the company is coming from acquisitions because

you're still dealing with lower sales volumes at the existing businesses, so when you look out three years, five years, does the growth continue to come through acquisitions, or are you looking to at some point trying to see a bit more accelerated growth organically? >> we believe that we'll start to see more organic growth as we get into the next several quarters. we think we'll seesequential improvement as we take that big inflation from a year ago, so as that abates, we believe and we overlap that big pricing, we believe that we'll start to see organic volume improve, and that's really driven by some, we believe, good levels of investment in marketing and in innovation. now at the same time while we'll be out of the game from a significant way for a while while we de-lever from the deal we'll still make acquisition, a

significant part of our growth plan. we believe we'll continue to improve the portfolio through acquisition over time. >> and are you expecting a significant amount of overlap? might we expect cuts in terms of jobs or investment as a result of this acquisition? >> well, certainly we don't need two corporate centers. we'll be one public company, but from a running of the private label business itself, they are -- ralcorp is four times bigger than we are. brings a lot of talent and experience that we will need, and as we go through the integration process i think that a lot of those assets will continue to be part of the company. >> all right. we'll leave it there. sir, good to have you on the program. thanks so much. >> good to be here. thank you. >> we hope you'll come back soon. thanks very much. up next, what does the head. aig think of the i.c.e./nyc deal. aig benmosche is here with me, and as the cliff turns, house preparing to vote on

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a toast to today's market close. online, amazon's product selection is 15 to 20 times larger than target and walmart. and the prices, 2% to 9% less than target and walmart stores and 5% to 10% lower than their websites. >> already. we just -- we want to show you rimm shares, the stock is still halted after the company reported its latest quarterly results. they are expected to resume trading in rimm in a few minutes. as you know, the company reported revenue of $2.7 billion and a loss of 22 cents a share. that is an adjusted loss, and basically in line with the expectations which called for a loss of 35 cents a share, but the 22 cents is adjusted. it looks like it's in line to slightly better. the stock is still halted. we'll get back to you as soon as that stock reopens and show you how the trade goes once it resumes trading. it's been a banner week for insurer aig.

the company sold its remaining stake in asian insurer aia groupration $6.5 which it used to send the final check to pay out the bailout for the government, the t.a.r.p. money. what now for the stock and for the company? had a great week. the stock is up nearly 5% on the week, and for the year aig has been an investment you wanted to own. it has been up more than 50% in 2012. joining me right now, let's take a bit of a victory lap here in a cnbc exclusive, the man at the helm of the company, ceo and president of the company bob benmoshe. >> a pleasure to be here. >> aig has paid back the government what, a total of $205 billion? >> absolutely. >> beginning to end, $205 and you still have a company standing. >> standing here with over $100 billion. >> let me make a comment about your opening line. i know it's very dangerous to

correct you. >> please do. >> have to worry about this in front of the whole audience. >> please do. >> the pay pac of t.a.r.p. came from the sale of the treasury stock, 7.6 billion, the rest of the stock they owned in aig. >> right. >> sold at a profit like the other tranches were sold. that was the completion of t.a.r.p.ch the sale of aia, the 6.5 billion, money now available to aig for corporate purposes, so that's not going away. that's staying within the company. >> okay. >> and that's part of our capital and liquidity plan for 2013. >> okay. that money from the sale of aia is staying in the coffers of aig? >> and the sale of the stock is what finished off the payment to t.a.r.p. >> you've got to be feeling great right now. talking about selling assets at peopleuals. you've done that. we've been talking about getting the government off your back. you've done that. we want to just show you our audience, research in motion, stock sharply higher once it

reopened for trading. it is opening for trading, up 3.5% on rimm. we'll follow that and get back to that next. what's next with aig. tell me what you do with the cash on hand. >> first of all, we want to shake sure we main sustain sufficient liquidity. we sell promises, sometimes promises for poem's lifetimes. we need to be able to withstand every stress in the future rand that's our first priority. we want to buy back our debt because we want to make sure we have the right debt-to-profit ratio. if we have a lot of flexibility in our capital, which we think we're building, we have an opportunity to buy back shares down the road once that's all

understood. >> when would you expect some of the shareholder friendly things to take place? we know the stock has done very well for shareholders next year but people are looking for dividend and looking for a stock buyback -- >> i haven't seen it. i want to make sure when i do it, i'll do it, when everybody is absolutely confident that we have liquidity for any stress that you can imagine that we can handle. it really is maintaining confidence. we've come through a crisis and we need to continually make sure we run the company the right way so people continue to do business and believe in our tirn tease. talk about how this business has changed. you have changed aig to really an insurance company only. >> right. tell me what your company comes from, and what we're hooking for around the world. >> considering a capital equity

inurns, fourth largest life insurance in the united states. we'll continue to innovate and be smart about how we do our risk management. we're starting to consider the year after, some businesses in japan and some other countries. we haven't sold it all but we'll also go to our commercial side as well as the consumer business where we sell accident and health. >> so what are you seeing in terms of the demand picture and the overall landscape for those misses because there's so much uncertainty out there with the fiscal cliff and, you know, with people unsure how 2013 looks? what do you think? >> first of all, sandy cost us 2 billion, but what it showed is what we're all about. we've been working hard with the people in the city and throughout connecticut and new jersey to make sure we help our clients get back up in their homes, businesses and so on and

so forth. what that sends by the customers there's value in what we're doing. we're began to continue to go out. it's important for companies to protect themselves from cyber attacks and address your suit, just like another hurricane coming through. are you seeing them sitting on their hand and not wanting to do anything? there's two different men at all times. the consumer is spending like they have been, but the business is a lot more cautious. >> my business is one where it says regardless of your miss you need to protect your certainly risks, and we have do is provide them different call at all

request if we had a situation where the money couldn't come out of their capital. in effect, rear-ended capital from us. if you think about some of the cast physical in japan and i'll and cries mist. all of those can a ghastly and issues that we deal, plus the day-to-day issues that people face, it's good for our business. >> what you're saying is your business is -- the interest rates were putting little bit of pressure on it, but we think we're dealing with it well but other is to make sure we get the underwriting right, take on the right price. doing a lot of reengineering. aig thinks it's getting better at that, and we feel that's the big driver of our growth, really coming from our expertise and understanding how to price and quantify and ensure risks.

>> interest rates sitting at such low levels right now. were you surprised that the federal reserve is now targeting the unemployment rate in terms of where rates go next? >> i saw the target, but they made it pretty clear they want to see that rate come down so we've done a lot to think about how, for example, we buy mortgages directly. if we can get an extra one-half of a percentage point or even three-quarters of a percentage point more by dealing direct with buying mortgages that people take out, we feel that these low interest rates, that's a huge percentage increase in the rate. so we're doing more direct lending and other kinds of investments so that we can try to mitigate this low interest rate which is going to be quite a while, so we've got to be prepared for that. >> you've been listed on the new york stock exchange for a long time. what's your take on this latest deal, nyc and intercontinental getting together? does this change anything for you? >> for me it doesn't change. what's most important is i need to know that our shareholders have a market and the new york

stock exchange thus far is a market that's highly liquid and in tough times you want to get that liquidity which is strength of this exchange, and i don't think the impacts it may enhance it a little bit, but to me i want to make sure we have a strong solid market. >> enhances it because the pool of liquidity is smaller. >> what kind of year are you expecting in 2013, bob? >> expecting a good year. >> yeah. >> can't give you a prediction, but i will tell you we've worked hard on our operating results in 2012. still on target we feel to achieve our as operational goals in 2015 >> you look at the asian market, and i know for a long time that's been so important. you mentioned japan, okay, the yen has been a big story. what can you tell us about what's happening in japan right now in terms of business? >> well, our business continued to do well over there, so i know that you read the headlines and see the issues. i think japan is working through their issues, but for our business at ai, still the largest foreign and general

insurener japan. sold off quite a lot of companies. have almost 14,000 people in j.our business is continuing to do well. >> still asset sales on the book you'd hike to continue the next couple of weeks. a lot of times we spoke about the leasing business and tell us more about more capital to be raised. >> just to wait for the companies. now we have to work through the do you diligence process and work and pretty confident that that teal will close in the second quarter next year. we don't think we'll have anything left to sell. we want to operate strongly and i think that will give us a lot of growth over the next several years. >> wishing you a great holiday. >> thank you. >> robert benmosche.

coming up, we'll take you live to washington with the latest developments on john boehner's "plan "b.""

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welcome back. the house getting closer to a vote on a plan to extend tax cuts for people making $1 million or less. john harwood is in washington. john? >> maria, the house is grinding through debate, procedural votes, first on a spending cut bill that would cut a couple hundred billion dollars, avert the sequester, which would take place if no action is taken by congress before the end of the year. then that just sets up the vote on the tax portion of john boehner's plan b, which would allow the tax rates to return to bush-era levels, excuse me, to clinton-era levels only for incomes over $1 million. that's not going to become law. democrats say it's not going to move in the senate, president is

going to veto it. this is part of the song and dance that goes on between the two parties before you finally get, either, them going over the cliff, because they simply can't agree, or get a big deal next week, which is what the white house and many people in congress still hope happens, maria. >> so, you know, john, most people want to know, why can't we get this deal done, what is the sticking point? >> the biggest sticking point is the inability of the speaker to control the house republican caucus. they don't want taxes to go up. the president, who won the election campaigning on that issue, is trying to say, look, i -- i talked about that across the country, i got 51% of the vote. but the house members, of course, are elected from different districts, many of them, as the president noted in his news conference yesterday, from districts that did not vote for president obama. so, members are digging in. they're very conservative in the modern republican party. they're talking about deeper spending cuts but the deeper

spending cuts could only come from programs like medicare and social security and there's no mandate for that. so, the speaker and the president agreed on some things, like a reduction in inflation adjustments for social security. they agreed on means testing for medicare. there isn't a whole lot of room to go deeper than that and until the speaker can get his caucus to come along to something close to what he and the president were about to agree with, we're not going to have progress. >> no progress. does that mean we don't get a deal bill year end and we go over the cliff and taxes soar on everybody and the spending cuts take effect or what's the odds we'll get a deal next week? >> you know, maria, we've talked about this many times. i've been optimistic from the beginning. i think the fundamentals are in place in terms of a recalibration by the republican party post-election to the fact that they were going to have to deal with this president and the fact that he won. so, i still think there's a

chance, but i would have to be pressing what i'm hearing from all my sources to say it's better than 50/50 chance. still possible that members go home, they come back after christmas, the speaker and the president ail agree on something and they ultimately find a way to get the votes to get it through, but more and more people on the inside of the process are telling me they think we're going to go over the cliff and we'll see what the public reaction is in january and whether a deal can be cut then. >> certainly feels like we're going over the cliff. thank you so much, john, with the latest. we'll check in as the developments occur. thank you. "fast money" begins in a few minutes. melissa lee with a preview. >> hey there, maria. top of the hour, we're all over the after hours action. we're on the conference call and our traders are giving you the trade. also, we're on the prowl in the options pits for unusual activity. today, it was herbalife and nyx. we'll tell you what the trades were and what they mean. and then, the worst trade of 2012. the big reveal happens in the next hour. we'll see you top of the hour on "fast."

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welcome back. research in motion shares on the move after hours on the heels of the results that we told you about. they are being seen as better than expected. get to john fort first for the headlines and then we want to look at this stock, which last week, a couple of weeks ago at $6 a share. now we're looking at a stock above $15, john. >> yeah, above $15 for the first time since february, maria. and the results are this. revenue, a little bit better than expected at just about $2.7 billion. eps, nongap comes in at 22 cents. better than the 35 expected. but it's not all good news. the subscriber number ticked down to 79 million from 80 million last quarter. that's a key number people have been watching. and they sold 6.9 million phones, down from 7.4 million a quarter ago. but you know, it's this $950 million in cash generated from operations that's going to have the rimm bulls excited. and it appears they might be bottg